Abstract
ON the outbreak of war, the -ologies and -isms into which the world of European civilization had been divided since the irruption of the dictator into national and international politics were resolved into an opposition of Christianity over against paganism. Such at least has been the rallying cry with which Britain, in what may be termed her official proclamations, asks for and has received the moral and material support of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, the United States of America and the remaining free peoples of the world. It must be patent, however, that in the present stage of development of modern thought, a literal interpretation of this bond as a subscription to a theological formula, as would seem to be implied, would set outside the pale not only those who are members of the other great religious systems of the world, but also those who, while intellectually ‘non-jurors’, have entered upon the struggle to secure the ascendancy in world affairs of that spirit which inspires Christianity, but is not peculiar to it, with a fervour and passionate devotion which has all the intensity of religious emotion. To say this is not to imply a revival of the over-long opposition of religion and science. It is rather to emphasize what has been in fact an approach to composing their differences; but there are not lacking those who in the cause of intellectual integrity would prefer to clarify the issue and to rest upon a statement of our aim in its simplest and widest appeal as being alone acceptable to those who adopt the point of view of the rationalist.
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Conflicting Ideals and War Aims. Nature 146, 486 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/146486a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/146486a0